In a letter, Chrisi Vineyard, President of Kendall County Democratic Women, tries to blame the recent stock market tumble on tea party Republicans. It’s not that simple. Democrats and Republicans have both failed to follow the constitution, which would have prevented this mess.

S&P had stated many months before the debt debates that it was considering a downgrade. They wanted to wait and see if any real changes took place before the “deadline” or if it was going to be business as usual. It was business as usual: promise cuts in the future ... and the future never comes.

Vineyard faults the opposition’s “unwillingness to compromise and their divisive, obstructionist attitude.”

That, my friends, is the way our system of government is supposed to work. Our Founders set up a system of checks and balances to ensure gridlock. Gridlock is good. It ensures that Congress is not ramming needless legislation down our throats.

We The People own the debt ... not the government. Think about that for a moment. People like Vineyard wring their hands at the thought of not being able to raise the debt ceiling, yet they fail to realize that the American people will pay the debt in one of two ways: directly, as in get your checkbook out, to the tune of approximately $42,000 per person; indirectly, the more likely way is to monetize the debt.

That means systematically devaluing the dollar until it is basically worthless. The value of any asset denominated in dollars becomes real cheap and, thus, the debt is paid. Stocks tank, because they are dollar denominated and physicals rally: gold, wheat, etc.

Think it’s bad now … wait five years. This is the tip of the iceberg.

No doubt our Founding Fathers would have handled things much differently.

Jeff Lonigro

St. Charles